Importance of Forum Signatures

[affearner]

Do search engines count forum signatures as relevant links? Do SEs, which are now smarter, put much weight on forum signature links?

[JEccles]

They do, but I've heard rumors that the way they count signatures will change. Instead of 20 links from this forum, all of your posts will equal 1 link.

[Shannonlp]

SE's seem to be looking at forums and directories fairly heavy in the past couple of months. Mainly paid links. The links do count I wouldn't make a business model out of it.

[affearner]

Instead of 20 links from this forum, all of your posts will equal 1 link.

So, does that mean one must register to as many forums as possible instead of concentrating to just one forum?

[JPnyc]

It probably won't yield the results you want, since I think you'll find many forums don't allow commercial links in signatures. For instance, of our 30 Internet forums that we publish, this is the only one that allows a signature for a brand-new user. Signature permissions on those forums are granted after the user has posted for a while, and even then, commercial links would be removed.

[affearner]

Well, how about if you were able to find forums that allow signatures even before you can make your first post, do you think it's right to register to as many forums as possible compared to concentrating to just one?

[JPnyc]

Do I think it's right? If you're asking me to evaluate the moral implications, I would have to say no, it's spamming. That's certainly how I would view it and treat it as administrator/manager of 30 Internet forums. Increasingly, spamming as a means of advertising is becoming like a stamp on the company that does it which reads "disreputable company". Personally, I think it's high time.

[The Old Sarge]

Forums do not exist so that we can paste and post our links on them. A nice side benefit, sure, but I think it's an abuse. And now that the SEs are leaning away from counting them so hightly, the forums might benefit.

[affearner]

You're right JPnyc. So what should one do in order to make the most out of forums without using any signature.

I think you've just given me the answer to my question The Old Sarge.

[JPnyc]

No one said you shouldn't use a signature at all, just that posting on each forum once just to drop your link is spamming. If you're a contributor to the forum as you are here, and the forum allows signatures as this one does, well that's fine. That's a give-and-take relationship, a symbiotic one, rather than parasitic.

[The Old Sarge]

Kind of like the salesman at his niece's wedding reception.

While he may "talk shop" with a few people, he doesn't go around indiscriminately passing out business cards ... unless he's a real Dilbert.

[affearner]

I see... So the best thing to make the most out of forums therefore is by making a name with what you say or contribute and not directly with your sig. Is that it?

[QuikShop]

I see... So the best thing to make the most out of forums therefore is by making a name with what you say or contribute and not directly with your sig.

Yep, a lot of our business comes now from referrals - if you can contribute to a discussion and offer otherwise paid-for advice (on SEO for example) it helps build your standing in this community.

As far as I can see it networking whether online or down your local networking group meeting is far more about finding mutually beneficial partnerships as it is blindly handing out business cards.

On another popular forum (ed: not as good as this one obviously ) we've built partnerships with graphic designers, an excellent CPC account management bod and a printers.

[The Old Sarge]

I see... So the best thing to make the most out of forums therefore is by making a name with what you say or contribute and not directly with your sig. Is that it?

Yes. It's better to have a good reputation and to gain respect in two or three forums than to have signature links in a thousand. IMO, a big part of the reason the SEs have lowered the inportance of forum sigs is that, by themselves, they are meaningless, insincere and no better than spam.

[opensourceforce]

Search engines are smart :-) i doubt they count the links much at all right now or have been counting all your posts on a forum the same as one for a while. It is easy for an engine to tell if your site is only linked from a forum. It might help you a little more if your site is very new. It could quicken the rate at which a spider gets to your site. If the forum is crawled and finds your link it might get to your site (and hopefully you also have a site map) and then crawl your new site sooner then if you just submitted it directly to Google. However, there are plenty of ways to get your site indexed. If you are just looking for an SEO benefit i would think (and i have no real research to back this up) you would be much better with article submission on content relevant to your site/products/services/ and a link back to your site in the article or "about the author" section rather then forum posts. Another important reason for this is that the article would then get feed out through a larger number of sites and feeds compared to your forum post link.